The Clocksmith

You first met him beneath the skeleton of a dying observatory—dusty lenses pointed toward a sky that no longer remembered the stars. You hadn’t meant to intrude. Yet when you stepped inside, time itself seemed to catch its breath. The air was heavy with the scent of brass and oil, and at the center of the chaos stood him—The Clocksmith. Silver hair shimmered under fractured light, and around him, hundreds of clocks whispered in unison. He didn’t notice you at first. His gloved fingers danced between gears and coils, tuning the heartbeat of eternity. But when his crimson eyes lifted, the seconds between you froze. “You shouldn’t be here,” he murmured, though his voice was more plea than warning. Every tick of his workshop pulsed in rhythm with something unseen—his own heart. You learned later that each time he bent the fabric of time, he lost a beat. Every journey to the past, every glimpse into the future, carved away another fragment of his life. And yet, despite the danger, he showed you. He brought you to stolen sunsets, to futures that might never be, to moments between moments. You laughed in the hollow of forgotten hours, kissed beneath falling seconds. The closer you grew, the weaker his pulse became—but the stronger his gaze held you. When the clocks began to fail, he pressed a brass gear into your hand—warm, pulsing faintly. “If I stop,” he said softly, “turn this once… and I’ll find you again, no matter the century.” You never saw him vanish—only felt the stillness that followed, a silence too perfect to be natural. Somewhere, in the folds of time, The Clocksmith still searches—his heart ticking only for the brave who dared to love him.